In August 2017 I travelled to Dayuma, a small town on the Ecuadorian oil frontier. I was conducting research for my recent book on fantastical materialism and post-neoliberal state utopias, which was the focus of my previous post on literary techniques for the critique of political economy. But as I entered the town, I could see a demonstration taking place outside the production facilities of a multinational oil company. And within hours of my arrival I was caught up in a labour dispute, which quickly escalated into a more serious and generalized conflict, involving the detention of the strike organizers, the kidnapping of the company manager, the blockading of the production complex, the launch of a military operation to break the blockade, and the unleashing of a rapidly evolving battle against seemingly impossible odds that was destined to achieve a remarkable victory [...]
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Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Santos said that he had “no idea” how the Wuhan job wound up on his C.V.
Good luck with that Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign over three months ago. The lackluster announcement kick-off event was held at his Mar-a-Lago beach club in front of a small crowd of people, many of whom were reportedly trying to get out of the room halfway through his speech, but security refused to allow it. Some of his most loyal insiders didn’t attend at all, notably, including offspring Don Jr. and Ivanka while the networks, including Fox News, cut away part way through his rambling “low-energy” spiel. Everyone agreed that this announcement didn’t come close to the bedazzled golden escalator pageant of 2016. So was that the best the great political impresario could do these days? At the very least it seemed quite clear that he was out of practice. The two years he’d spent ruminating over the Big Lie and attempting to play kingmaker from afar had left him rusty. People were blaming the defeat of the midterms on his endorsements of election denier MAGA candidates and the whispers of “loser, loser, loser” were getting louder.
These bananas are perfect for making banana bread, so I will toss them in the freezer for a few months until I’m ready to pull them out and throw them straight into the trash can. In the meantime, they’ll take up a bunch of space, and I’ll look at them and think, These stupid bananas. I’d like to make a banana loaf because, man, are those delicious warmed up with butter, but I have never made one in my life, will never make one before my dying breath, and don’t even own a loaf pan.
Banana muffins seem like a great little snack for someone who’s a better person than me. I bet someone who comes home at the end of their workday and places their dirty clothes into the hamper rather than piling them on the chair in the corner of the bedroom for the next three weeks would whip up some mean banana muffins. Those little babies would be so soft and fluffy with whatever ingredients make them that way, including these rock-hard, freezer-burned bananas that I will never touch again.
An evolutionary biologist on the harm still being done by unsubstantiated beliefs.
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As the war drags on, sympathy is growing for Russia as the underdog fighting the behemoth North American and EU economies. The West would get more support for its cause in Ukraine if it is seen to be pushing for either a peace proposal or a fair compromise on Ukraine. Why hasn’t 85 per cent Continue reading »
It’s clear that Australian sovereignty is being seriously, perhaps fatally, imperilled by the policies of successive Australian governments populated by Austral-Americans. Defence Minister Richard Marles’ address to parliament on February 9, entitled ‘Securing Our Sovereignty’, deserves a close reading. It was delivered at a time when, in the minister’s own words, “it has never been Continue reading »
The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, has declared Australia’s migration system is “broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population”. While no one is to be held accountable for this, not even the guy who has been in charge for Continue reading »
The Director General of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, is an intelligence professional whose views about threats to national security should be considered carefully, and on their merits. But I am not sure that he deserves the benefit of every doubt. Sarah Kendall, a PhD candidate from the University of Queensland, Continue reading »
The epidemic of silicosis amongst tradespeople working with manufactured stone was predictable, preventable, and an illustration of a broken OHS system across NSW and the rest of Australia. Until 2011, NSW had a workplace health and safety regulator whose statutory role was to “promote the prevention of injuries and diseases at the workplace and the Continue reading »
Now that China is opening up, it’s a good time to reflect on their pandemic response. The first-ever COVID-19 strain detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 was the L strain. From the pandemic beginning to the end of last November the Chinese reported that only 6000 Chinese had died of Covid. This is reasonable Continue reading »
It has been over a year and half since girls’ secondary education was banned by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and recently, they banned women from studying at universities too – which led the future of many women and girls to darkness. Missing Perspectives reporter Roya Musawi speaks with young women in Kabul defying the education Continue reading »
The matter has gone to India’s Supreme Court via a public interest litigation seeking probe against Hindenburg “for exploiting innocent investors.” Interestingly, Hindenburg also holds short positions in Adani companies through US-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivative instruments.
Hindenburg’s actions have been controversial. The firm’s financial model involves identifying “bad” firms, investing to profit from the company’s price collapsing, and then publishing a negative report about the company....
India Punchline
Reports of Adani’s eclipse are greatly exaggerated
M.K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service and former ambassador.
M.K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service and former ambassador.
DeSantis’ RINO past Well, well, well… Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once strongly supported arming Ukraine to fight Russia, urging then-President Barack Obama to do so as a deterrent to Russian aggression in Eastern Europe – a position at odds with his statements this week questioning the United States’ involvement in the conflict. As a conservative congressman, DeSantis, now a potential presidential hopeful, urged sending “defensive and offensive” weapons to Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 and even voted to refuse to fund a new missile defense treaty with Russia until they withdrew from Ukraine, according to a review of DeSantis’ past comments by CNN’s KFile.
FEBRUARY 17 2023 One year has passed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and nothing seems to indicate that the flames of war are dying. Why does the war still continue? Why are military tensions rising in the world? We reject the thesis of a “clash of civilisations”. Rather, we need to recognise … Continue reading Letter: The economic conditions that make wars more likely
Honorary Vice President at IMANI Center for policy and education, Bright Simons, on the challenges Ghana is facing
Bright Simons is honorary Vice President at IMANI Center for policy and education, a think tank dedicated to policy and research on rule of law, market growth and development, individual rights, and human security and institutional development. He previously served on the World Economic Forum's Africa Strategy Group.
This is “impossible”, but New Zealand is trying anyway.
If you cast your mind back to the peak of the GFC, when people were actually talking about the dissolution of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), a.k.a. the Eurozone, or more specifically, a unilateral exit by Greece or Italy, we were told by the ‘experts’ that it would be catastrophic. Over and over, headlines shouted at us how disastrous it would be if the Eurozone failed. Well, guess what, even pro-Euro researchers have come to the conclusion that the effects of collapsing the monetary union would be minimal, to say the least. And when we dig into their analysis a bit deeper, using technical knowledge, the results are even more devastating for the pro-Euro camp. Mostly, using techniques that give pro-Europe narratives the best chance of delivering supportive empirical results, they find mostly impacts that are not statistically different from zero, of an abandonment of the common currency and a return to currency sovereignty for the 20 Member States. I haven’t seen any attention given to this in the mainstream media or from those pro-Euro Tweeters that tweet away with all sorts of nonsense about how good the common currency has been.
Putin the salesman NOTE: An update-related laptop crash kept me from posting this while on the road on Sunday. Two hours of Windows reset and some rebuilding later, it’s fixed. When health insurance industry whistleblower Wendell Potter spoke here (pre-pandemic), someone asked about those ubiquitous Medicare advantage TV ads. Stay away, Potter advised. Sure, they make the plans sound good, Potter said. They know what you’ll buy. So does former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator is selling. The American right is buying, and some on the left too. If Putin sounds as if he’s running for president in 2024, that’s no accident, writes E.J. Dionne: “Look at what they’ve done to their own people,” he said of us Westerners. “They’re destroying family, national identity, they are abusing their children. Even pedophilia is announced as a normal thing in the West.” Never mind that Russia is a world leader in sex trafficking. Putin didn’t stop there.
Will the RW pause its transgender freakout and book banning? The Department of Energy has a special announcement. Well, it’s not that special, really. It’s another “low confidence” finding not unlike the Cochrane mask study that Bret Stephens hyped last week in the New York Times. In a classified report, the DOE finds based on new intelligence that there is a low probability that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak in China. Then come the caveats (New York Times): Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department’s conclusion was made with “low confidence,” suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them changed their conclusions, officials said. Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan would not confirm the intelligence, telling CNN on Sunday “there is no definitive answer” the the origin of the pandemic. The 18 services in the intelligence community have differing assessments. In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I.
Environmental protesters are forbidden to explain their motivations to juries, making a mockery of justice. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd February 2023 To tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”: this is the oath defendants in an English court must take. But when David Nixon sought to do […]
Nosso jornalismo incomodou Edir Macedo.
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